by Megan Boyle
1:02PM: here is the poll (and its results):
HOW SHOULD I TYPE ABOUT MAY 31–JUNE 2:
• largely unedited update of everything typed on my iphone; elaborate on details later [RESULT: 3 VOTES]
• update from the perspective of ‘now (sunday afternoon): remembering what happened from thursday night until now (sunday afternoon)’ [RESULT: 6 VOTES]
• largely unedited update of everything typed on my iphone; leave ‘as is’/no elaborations [RESULT: 5 VOTES]
• ‘forget’ the time period from thursday night (stopped updating) until 8:11AM today (resumed updating w/a frequency i want to continue) [RESULT: 3 VOTES]
• wait to update until i’ve elaborated on things so they look like i was updating chronologically the whole time [RESULT: 2 VOTES]
• Give detailed explanation of feelings and events that caused you not to update [SOMEONE ELSE WROTE THIS, RESULT: 1 VOTE]
• Other [RESULT: 1 VOTE]
12:24PM: starting to worry about overdosing, accidental overdose. got a sugar-free red bull from fridge via ‘seems good to stay awake and wait this out, just stay awake as long as you can.’ marathon staying awake. feels very hard. shit. started to typ.e ‘if i start reading or watching the movie again i’ll definitely fall as[i know i’ll just fall asleep for a little bit]
12:31PM: heard ice cream truck playing the song zachary and i would sing at each other while making insane ‘ren and stimpy’/‘cartoon of a person going insane’ faces. thought this ice cream truck song was only in philadelphia and i had ‘escaped’ it.
a lot of fast-moving mental picture things. seems foreign. they’re all drawn in the same style, like 8-bit digital…sort of…like a .jpeg photo of…it’s like when the edges of 8-bit things become softer in .jpegs
mental picture of black halloween cat, like, saw that when i closed my eyes
mental picture of…it was like it was painted on steel? aluminum? it was all in red: a man with red beard and…like it was drawn by the same person who drew the cat. the same style. it’s a recognizable drawing style, people use it on napkins i feel…stationary…birthday parties? sesame street
mental picture of the same style of drawing but it was nutrition facts, a close-up/cropped picture of canned something
mental picture of a jeep (the SUV kind/not the ‘off road’ kind) in burger king drive thru line. ordering at the speaker part. other cars in line also. i think it’s the burger king in eldersburg, across from the walmart.
i thought it was a cop but i don’t know what it is: it’s like a dog. kind of. it sounds like a video game cop/dog going ‘bo bo bo bo bo bo.’ it’s definitely a dog for real, it’s louder now, how i did i think that was a cop
mental picture of the window drops of rain on my window the day amahd gave me the $20 and i was in the car talking to mom
i can hear lifeguard whistles, people are at the beach
sometimes feel aroused imagining porno tao and i made in spain
1:04PM: i’m mainly seeing a series of vivid mental pictures that then causes ‘the thing’ to happen…‘the thing’ is a tryptophobia-like grid of tiny periods. tiny dots. they actually seem to be exactly the size of this: ‘.’
some are a little bigger and some are a little smaller. i try to look at them like, ‘look one of them in the eye,’ then i realize it’s not a dot, it’s a spinning thing. it’s part of a very defined spinning checkerboard-like thing. similar to DMT. if i press on my eyes really hard normally i see this also, i remember pressing hard when i was little and seeing it. the spinning component when i was little was more of….well it was dark brown and light brown. it was like multiple sets of the same tiny hose/spiral. remember calling it ‘the earthworms’ in my head. now the version of it i’m seeing is like a warped dark neon purple/pink checkerboard…like that’s underneath ‘the earthworms.’ the ‘.’/periods/grid turn into the checkerboard thing and ‘the earthworms’
1:12PM: heard ‘to get in-to this website’ in neutral male voice and ‘too drunk to get over here’ in mom’s voice. no longer worried about accidental overdose, seems like i’ll be fine.
1:18PM: person i texted last night texted me back. text either ‘bodes well’ or ‘bodes neutral/confirms ‘novelty factor’ suspicions.’
1:58PM: made photo of five things stacked ontop of each other for tao’s ‘tao day’ at thought catalog and responded to emails. got glass of water. stood too fast or laid down too fast and feel like i might vomit again. alvie seems afraid of mattress pad, both cats curious about opened window.
2:05PM: eyes have been closed. seems strange that you can’t see ‘sparkly’ things when you close your eyes. like it should be ‘sparkly.’ had ‘premonition’ that dad is going to die in 2007.
2:13PM: vomited. at the end it was just dry heaving. very…like, jesus. can’t remember the word. it feels like ‘spicy.’ burning. acidic, that’s the word. that’s the fish. thought i had figured out how to ‘hold off’/‘dam’ the flow of vomit to not go through my nose at all but got ‘carried away’ maybe and lost awareness and it came out my nose at the end. while vomiting felt motivated to write as much as i could about…like, filling in updates, doing ‘self yelp’ and ‘tao day’ article today. i can do the ‘tao day’ one easily.
4:05PM: talked intensely with mom on the phone for a little over two hours. saw lightning but no rain out the window a few times. ate and apple and heated two torillas on the stove and put olive oil, garlic, salt, vinegar on them while on the phone. conversation ended with me saying something like ‘it’ll be better if we just get off the phone, please trust me, i know we’ll feel better if we just stop’ and mom not really wanting to stop.
after we got off the phone i watched a youtube video of a man talking about ‘the plasticity of the brain’ and how it’s possible to re-wire your neurons if you modify your behavior. started falling asleep. the man’s face wasn’t in the video. it was called ‘ASMR motivational tips for anxiety/depression/derealization/depersonalization’ or something. felt ‘casually, not-interested-enough-to-disturb-falling-asleep process’ afraid of the man. the way he was stressing he wasn’t a medical professional in the beginning seemed scary. remember thinking things like ‘it’s possible he’s included some kind of coding in the video that my brain understands but i don’t and he’s re-wiring my brain for his benefit somehow’ and ‘my window is open’ and ‘[picture of something watching me from the perspective of outside my window, then a face like the ‘mulholland drive’ dumpster man showing up next to my bed].’
mom called again. short conversation, mostly like, consoling each other about previous conversation, like we were both saying ‘it’ll be okay.’ ate 1mg xanax after we got off the phone, set alarms for 7:31AM and 7:47AM and 8:47AM, and fell asleep watching a youtube documentary about borderline personality disorder. will update with ‘what i remember from thursday from the perspective of [used to be ‘sunday afternoon’/will now just be ‘whenever i finish thought catalog things’]’ (option that won votes) when i have time.
turned off alarms. ate noopept, caffeine pill, sugar-free red bull. thought i only had until 2PM to finish the tweet thing. finished most of one of the tweet things and was going to turn it in looking shitty. re-read email and saw deadline was june 4 at 2PM, not today. re-read email from last night deadline for chris killen transcription had been pushed up to june 4 at 6PM. i wasn’t thinking things like ‘time’ yesterday.
2:01PM: threw away cans and paper recycleable things. talked twice with mom on phone. masha’s package was outside door. sometimes a package will be sitting outside my door. haven’t thrown out old mattress yet. seems ‘annoyingly symbolic.’
ceiling fan stopped working yesterday but the windows have been open and cats are acting insane, i think because old cat pee on the curtains was activated by opened-window moisture. moisture-activated insanity curtains. need to do laundry today. wash curtains. “cats are out of wet food but they seem happy with dry,’ she typed to make hers
elf feel better.’
lit candle. swept/mopped floor and cleaned cat box. i did those things multiple times yesterday too. feel like the woman in ‘woman in the dunes,’ via cat litter granules being sort of like sand and…just…never-ending. i’m always sweeping things, it seems. have felt very preoccupied with having a clean floor and no ‘crumbies’ in bed since living here. not interested in why but am pretty sure there are annoyingly symbolic reasons for all of this too.
masha sent phenylpiracetam and aniracetam ‘extra goodies’ with vyvanse/adderall shipment. texted her something about her packaging skills and thank you and i was thinking about buying phenylpiraetam or another ‘nootropic’ thing last night. thought something like ‘nice men and women in their 20’s helping each other by mailing cutely wrapped and thoughtfully assembled packages of drugs and drawings and miscellaneous things’ while opening her package and remembering my package to her and matthew’s recent package. ate one of the…i’m not sure which one i ate. ate 50mg vyvanse.
downloaded ‘camtasia’ to keep track of the time i transcribe. am getting paid to do this. will wait on typing may 31-june 2 update until i finish.
3:33PM: transcribed about three minutes/one page of chris killen’s 37-minute monologue about knut hamsun. ate 20mg adderall.
3:34PM: paused ‘camtasia’ recording to make celery/cucumber/coconut water juice and call mom back. only one and a half hours and three minutes of recording had gone by. i was doing the transcription the whole time except i looked at chrome to see how to spell ‘edvard munch’ once. ‘camtasia’ takes a video of your screen…seems funny to have a video recording of me doing the transcription…talked to mom in ‘chris voice.’ chris talks like british woody allen kind of. kind of. at one point he says something really funny and i was laughing transcribing. felt my brain being in ‘mining for where punctuation would occur in a voice’-mode talking to mom. on the phone, washed vegetables. mom is going to a furniture store. seems like we are both currently ‘worried about getting things done and potentially disappointing people/ourselves.’ apologized to her about letting conversation get intense last night and she apologized too. she said ‘what does the sky look like there?’ i said ‘it’s like…blue. i mean. gray, white. it’s white. white-gray. it’s really bad, what about you?’ she said ‘oh it’s just the same, just the same. isn’t it so awful?’
4:49PM: going to focus less on getting down chris’ ‘microscopic if there could be microscopes for ears/voices’ vocal tics and more on typing.
HUMORLESS ASS DAY.
LAUNDRY TODAY.
NEEDS TO HAPPEN.
THEN I CAN CALL MARK AND GET THE FAN FIXED AND THROW AWAY THE MATTRESS AND CALL BACK THE NAVY AND APPLY FOR JOBS…WHAT THE HELL…THINGS GOT OUT OF CONTROL SOMEHOW…LOSING FOCUS…ONE MONTH LEFT…NEED TO START…GIOSDIDSOFHDSOIFHD
SEEMS FUNNY ACTUALLY, ALL OF THIS, NOT HUMORLESS
A LOT OF THE TIME I THINK ‘LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE TYPING, THIS IS WHAT FEELS BEST TO COME OUT OF YOU’ AND KIND OF LAUGH AND WANT TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU
WHOEVER YOU ARE
ALSO ONE LAST THING: THE WAY I OBSESS ABOUT SMALL CLEANLINESS-RELATED THINGS IN MY APARTMENT BUT HAVE BEEN NEGLECTING ‘FIXING LARGE THINGS’ AND NOT EATING PROPERLY REMINDS ME OF THE—DOES ANYONE REMEMBER IN ‘THE END OF THE STORY’ WHERE IT’S LIKE A LONG THING ABOUT…THAT, KIND OF? HOW SHE’S SUCCUMBING TO DOING THINGS LIKE THAT…IT’S BEFORE SHE SHOWS UP ON HIS DECK/PORCH, I THINK…ONLY I’M NOT AS…LIKE I DON’T HAVE REASONS FOR FEELING DEPRESSED OR LIKE I’M ‘SURVIVING’ OR ANYONE’S DECK/PORCH I WANT TO SHOW UP ON, THAT’S JUST HOW I’M FEELING
ALSO DID THE GUY IN THAT HAVE RED HAIR
THINK I HAVE ALWAYS PICTURED HIM WITH RED HAIR AND HAVE FELT AVERSION
ALSO PAUL AUSTER’S AND LYDIA DAVIS’ RELATIONSHIP SEEMS EQUALLY LIKE ‘HUH’ AND ‘YES I UNDERSTAND, MAKES PERFECT SENSE’ TO ME
ALSO WHEN I THINK ‘PAUL AUSTER’ I THINK ‘MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN…NO’ AND ‘[PICTURE OF A CGI BLACK DOG WITH WET EYES]’ AND ‘[PICTURE OF A SCRIPT]’ AND ‘TAPDANCING DETECTIVE’ AND ‘THAT GUY FROM ‘AMERICAN BEAUTY’ WHO PLAYS THE REAL ESTATE KING’
WHEN I THINK ‘LYDIA DAVIS’ I THINK ‘SALTINE CRACKERS’ AND ‘[PICTURE I ALWAYS SEE OF HER FACE ON GOOGLE IMAGES, LOOKING OLDER THAN HOW I THINK SHE IS]’ AND ‘[PICTURE OF HER SITTING AT HER DESK IN THE ROOM FROM ‘SECRET ROOM’ OR SOMETHING MOVIE WITH JOHNNY DEPP BUT HER HEAD IS CUT OFF AT THE NECK AND THERE ARE A LOT OF PAPERS AND AN OPENED THING OF SALTINE CRACKERS NEAR HER TYPEWRITER WHICH SHE FEELS WEIRD ABOUT USING BUT ALSO LIKE SHE ‘HAS TO’ USE OR LIKE ‘NOT ENOUGH MOTIVATION TO START USING SOMETHING ELSE YET BUT AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY’]
9:01PM: transcribed chris killen thing marathon style. a little under 4700 words. great job shitty shoo.
10:44PM: it’s 10:44PM now. just so you. know. i’m addressing that the beginning of the ending of this break ends at ‘10:44PM:’ so that probably means right now it is 10:44PM, i think you know that, addressing it now though. officially. going to resume transcribing chris’ thing 11:05PM.
everything i remember doing from 9:02-10:44PM:
• went to pickles & pies to get more energy drinks/groceries/cat food. talked to myself in ‘chris voice’ while dressing. emailed tao to see if i was taking too long on transcription/if there were money issues.
• recorded video of me talking like chris but seems unseemly.
• drank remaining liquid in sugar-free red bull can.
• saw matthew donahoo text from 7:28PM, picture captioned with ‘My roommate is making grunting sounds while I look at him from the couch’
• started typing response to mira’s text from earlier thinking ‘this will not garner a response but i want to respond more.’
• approached colin and ‘fancy food friend’ on the way to pickles & pies. seemed like we might not talk but then i said ‘hi.’ he asked where i was going. i said ‘oh just pickles & pies.’ he said ‘word.’ we had already passed each other, i was standing and had turned around to face colin and friend as they continued walking to apartment building. colin said i missed something on saturday, the irish music festival thing. he said ‘my texts.’ i was holding my phone. i said ‘i dropped my phone’ or something. embarrassed. he said ‘feel free to stop by on your way back, we’re just hanging out.’ there was a moment. i said ‘have a good night.’ seemed…obvious…that something has changed. not responding to texts has changed something. he understands something now.
• resumed typing mira text response.
• veered ‘course of walk’ trajectory into street to avoid potentially acknowledging person approaching on sidewalk. the person was wiry, puffily haired, wearing earphones and white t-shirt with greenish graphic. looked cartoonishly uninterested in everything going on, including themselves walking.
• passed man sitting in a wheelchair outside library. he was looking at me like ‘i saw the whole thing, i saw you walk into the street to avoid the person who wasn’t even paying attention.’
• texted mira about that.
• walked into pickles & pies.
• eventually used a basket to carry: four-pack of sugar-free red bull, two monster zeroes, sabra classic hummus, three-pack canned tuna, celery, parsley, lettuce head, two lemons.
• asked cashier for ‘logic’ e-cigarette refills. he asked if i smoke more now and i said yes, but it feels better. he said ‘no like, no [gestures to chest and makes a face].’ i said ‘no, none of that.’ at one point i said ‘yeah i don’t know, because like in twenty years maybe they’ll figure out these things are worse for you.’ he seemed to say a long thing about the mafia. i said ‘what?’ he said ‘mafia, the mafia.’ he said something i didn’t understand fully about how much money is ‘floating around’ and ‘you can’t do it alone’ and ‘think about it,’ then something like ‘presidents? kings? you don’t even know widdem.’ i said ‘you never know.’ it was a good one. good conversation. can’t remember. a man was walking around our ‘area’ the whole tim
e. at one point he said ‘fours? sevens? ‘scuse me, y’all don’t do the lotto anymore, do you?’
• matthew texted ‘Looks beautiful.’
• tao emailed what i sent of transcription looks okay and to keep going, no money/time issues. started re-reading transcription and laughed through nose while walking inside. i like reading things like this a lot, like, word-for-word extremely detailed transcriptions of things that don’t exclude ‘uh’ or ‘um’ things and treat punctuation like the same thing as words, kind of.
• pressed ‘up’ on elevator and debated saying ‘hi’ to colin and his friend, distractedly smoking e-cigarette. thought ‘say ‘hi’ after you put away groceries. what are you going to say. is he the one who brought up the package? thank him, that was nice, what if it wasn’t him…’
• another light has gone out. the red light. the outlet above it seems to work.
• put away groceries and fed cats. cats officially enjoy fancy feast more than tuna.
• changed from jeans to pajama shorts but did not take off ‘get out of the apartment’ shirt, thinking ‘maybe i will say hi to colin and friend. it’s not too late. just say ‘hi,’ be a neighbor, a normal person.’ looked at face/pupils in mirror. pupils big. pictured myself saying ‘hi guys, i’m working on this thing all day and night, transcribing this thing’ and eventually saying the word ‘gig’ and pee running down legs.
• ate an amount of vyvanse, think it’s 25mg. it’s the one masha drew something on, i think, to indicate it contained less. texted masha a response thinking ‘this will not garner a response but i want to respond to people more.’
• willis texted if i’d be home/at rockaway tomorrow and…i thought today was tuesday and tao’s reading was tomorrow and mira’s/scott’s/my baltimore reading was the next day. relieved. i said i might be sleeping during the day probably.
